Saturday, March 16, 2013

Advantages of Solar Energy

Solar energy offers considerable advantages over conventional
energy systems by nullifying flaws in those systems long considered to be
unchangeable. Solar power for home energy production has its flaws, too, which
are outlined in another article, but they're dwarfed by the
advantages listed below.

The
following are advantages of solar energy:

Raw materials
are renewable and unlimited. The amount of available solar energy is
staggering -- roughly 10,000 times that currently required by humans
-- and it’s constantly replaced. A mere 0.02% of incoming sunlight, if
captured correctly, would be sufficient to replace every other fuel source
currently used.

Granted,
the Earth does need much of this solar energy to drive its weather, so let’s
look only at the unused portion of sunlight that is reflected back into space,
known as the albedo. Earth’s average albedo is around 30%, meaning that roughly
52 petawatts of energy is reflected by the Earth and lost into space every
year. Compare this number with global energy-consumption statistics.
Annually, the energy lost to space is the combined equivalent of 400
hurricanes, 1 million Hoover Dams, Great Britain's energy requirement for
250,000 years, worldwide oil, gas and coal production for 387 years, 75 million
cars, and 50 million 747s running perpetually for one year (not to mention 1
million fictional DeLorean time machines!).

Solar power is
low-emission. Solar panels produce no pollution, although they impose
environmental costs through manufacture and construction. These
environmental tolls are negligible, however, when compared with the damage
inflicted by conventional energy sources: the burning of fossil
fuels releases roughly 21.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere annually.

Solar power is
suitable for remote areas that are not connected to energy grids. It may
come as a surprise to city-dwellers but, according to Home Power
Magazine, as of 2006, 180,000 houses in the United States were
off-grid, and that figure is likely considerably higher today. California,
Colorado, Maine, Oregon, Vermont and Washington have long been refuges for
such energy rebels, though people live off the grid in every state. While
many of these people shun the grid on principle, owing to politics and
environmental concerns, few of the world’s 1.8 billion off-the-gridders
have any choice in the matter. Solar energy can drastically improve the
quality of life for millions of people who live in the dark, especially in
places such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where as many as 90% of the rural
population lacks access to electricity. People in these areas must rely on
fuel-based lighting, which inflicts significant social and environmental
costs, from jeopardized health through contamination of indoor air, to
limited overall productivity.

Solar power
provides green jobs. Production of solar panels for domestic
use is becoming a growing source of employment in research,
manufacture, sales and installation.

In the long run,
solar power is economical. Solar panels and installation involve high
initial expenses, but this cost is soon offset by savings on energy
bills. Eventually, they may even produce a profit on their use.

Solar power
takes advantage of net metering, which is the practice of crediting
homeowners for electricity they produce and return to the power grid.
As part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, public electric utilities are
required to make available, upon request, net metering to their customers. This practice offers an
advantage for homeowners who use solar panels (or wind turbines or fuel
cells) that may, at times, produce more energy than their homes require.
If net metering is not an option, excess energy may be stored in
batteries.

Solar power can
mean government tax credits. U.S. federal subsidies credit up to 30% of
system costs, and each state offers its own incentives.
California, blessed with abundant sunshine and plagued by high electric
rates and an over-taxed grid, was the first state to offer generous
renewable-energy incentives for homes and businesses.

Solar power is
reliable. Many homeowners favor solar energy because it is virtually
immune to potential failings of utility companies, mainly in the form of
political or economic turmoil, terrorism, natural disasters, or brownouts
due to overuse. The Northeast Blackout of 2003 unplugged 55 million people
across two countries, while rolling blackouts are a part of regular life
in some South Asian countries, and occasionally in California and Texas.

Solar power
conserves foreign energy expenditures. In many countries, a large
percentage of earnings is used to pay for imported oil for power
generation. The United States alone spends $13 million per hour on
oil, much of which comes from Persian Gulf nations. As oil
supplies dwindle and prices rise in this politically unstable region,
these problems continue to catalyze the expansion of solar
power and other alternative-energy systems.